


I think we're alone now

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Developing Relationship, Hospitalization, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Nervousness, POV TK Strand, Panic Attacks, Self-Indulgent, Team as Family, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24055519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: When TK had first heard the address come over the scanner, he thought that he had misheard.All he could think was that there had to have been some kind of mistake with the call, that it had been lost in translation, that dispatch had been wrong. But he knew deep down that it was right, and that he really was being sent to a home invasion with an address he knew like the back of his hand.
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, Firehouse 126 Crew (9-1-1 Lone Star) & TK Strand, Michelle Blake & Carlos Reyes (9-1-1 Lone Star)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 197





	I think we're alone now

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this. I'll admit, this is ENTIRELY self-indulgent. I just wanted to write something based on TK and the 126 responding to a call at Carlos's address and then this whole thing kinda got away from me. This wasn't supposed to be 2000 words, much less close to 6000. And I will admit, I'm not too happy with this one either. I know I've said this about a few of my 911 fics, but this one... you know. You'll get it when you read it. I don't know. I think I find it harder to write about real people than I do other fics? Like, my CR fics come much easier than my 911 fics. Same thing with my One Chicago fics. I don't know. I know it's a show, but they're playing real people with real issues, whereas everything else, everyone has strange powers and crazy backstories and stuff. I don't know. BUT I will admit that this could have been MUCH worse than it was, so despite that this is self-indulgent and mostly for me, I hope you like it xxx

When TK had first heard the address come over the scanner, he thought that he had misheard. 

It took him a moment to even process that they were being sent to a call, and he actually replied to dispatch and asked them to repeat the address again. Paul had looked at him strangely as he passed him and lightly whacked him on the back of the head to get him back in gear. “Hard of hearing today, TK?” he joked. “Come on, let’s go.”

Now inside the relative safety of the truck, laden down with heavy equipment in the familiar confined space with five other people, TK repeated the house number in his head, again and again, and the street name, again and again, and still he couldn’t wrap his head around it. It felt like he was vibrating out of his skin in his anxiety, and he found himself chewing on his nails and tapping his foot on the sturdy metal of the truck that was almost felt over the rumbling of the tires over the uneven road.

All he could think was that there had to have been some kind of mistake with the call, that it had been lost in translation, that dispatch had been wrong. But he knew deep down that it was right, and that he really was being sent to a home invasion with an address he knew like the back of his hand.

“TK? Kid,” He hadn’t noticed the 126 watching him the since the moment he entered the truck and had carefully kept an eye on him as he let his nerves out through any means necessary. Judd had been trying to get his attention and clicked his fingers in TK’s face until he looked up. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

What TK wanted to do was lie and tell them that he had never been better, but somehow he found his body betraying him, and he shook his head and reached out to hold tightly onto Marjan’s hand as a familiar neighbourhood flashed by the windows. Owen had become aware of the commotion in the back seat, and he twisted around in the front to look TK in the eyes. “TK? What’s wrong? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“This call that we’re heading to...” TK gulped as he felt hysteria tightening its hold in his chest. “It’s to Carlos’s address.”

The whole engine fell silent except for the rattling of the metal on the road and the scratching of the sirens. They all looked at him in horror, and TK felt like he was going to collapse. He felt like he was underwater as all sound turned muffled and he watched his dad turn to the driver and the truck visually sped up, and the rest of the 126 erupted into various stages of panic, looking more serious than TK had ever seen them.

When they arrived at Carlos’s home, the place was already swarming with first responders. Four police cruisers were parked in the driveway, and an ambulance had its sirens blaring. The front door was kicked in, windows were smashed, yellow police tape surrounded the perimeter and TK was out the door and on his feet and running before the truck had even stopped. He heard the 126 shouting after him, but he just needed to find someone he recognized, someone who’d know, someone who could tell him what the hell had happened-

His dad caught up to him and stopped him with a heavy hand on his shoulder, and TK ground to a halt. “What are you doing, TK? What is running around like this going to fix?”

“Dad, I just… I need to know what _happened_.”

“You know what happened. Someone broke into Carlos’s home and beat him until he bled. That’s the truth. And you know it.” TK didn’t answer, because deep down he knew his dad was right, even though it hurt him something unholy to admit it. Owen took TK’s silence as acceptance and looked towards the house. “You should stay here.”

That was the last thing that TK was going to do. “No, Dad, it’s _Carlos_ -”

“I know exactly who it is TK, and I know that you’ll be of more use to us and to him out here, not in there,” Owen said sternly, yet carefully, as TK watched with watery eyes the rest of the team march into the building. “You know that I’m right. You stay here, and I swear to you, I’ll tell you everything once we come out, alright? I swear it.”

TK didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much he could do, as his dad turned away without waiting for an answer and followed the rest of the team into the house. Judd looked back at him and sent him a final look that TK couldn’t read before he was left alone, surrounded by people he didn’t know in a place that felt like home. But not today. Today it was the worst thing that TK had ever seen, and he couldn’t believe that he was outside, doing nothing and being useless when he should be inside searching for Carlos and making sure he was OK, telling him how much he loved him, holding his hand on the way to the ambulance. But his dad had asked him to stay outside. Not even that. His captain had given him an order, and TK was nothing if not faithful to his captain.

After two minutes that felt like two hours, and TK’s vision stated to darken as his mind raced through all the worst scenarios, there was a commotion from the entrance, and the 126 emerged from the building, holding a stretcher between them, surrounded by flustered paramedics and spooked police officers.

Suddenly, after nothing but panic and worry and planning action, TK found that he couldn’t move, and all he could do was watch his family carry the man he loved to the ambulance and helped them hoist him onto the gurney before they started to disperse. Marjan’s hands were covered in blood, and everyone’s boots were leaving bloodied footsteps as they turned their backs on the ambulance and the man inside and made their way to TK.

“TK,” Owen said when he reached him, his voice compassionate and gentle, but his eyes were haunted. “You’re freaking out.”

“That’s a mild way of putting it,” TK choked out, every word feeling like he was suffocating, as he watched Carlos’s feet disappear inside the ambulance.

He was just about to ask what he had seen when suddenly a familiar face popped out from the back doors of the ambulance and after a moment of searching the area, caught sight of him and Michelle called. “TK! Come on!” and TK didn’t know what to do, but then he felt hands on him, pushing him away and towards the ambulance, and when he glanced around he saw Judd and Mateo and Marjan and Paul all shoving him in that direction, and Owen gave him a nod, and TK was moving faster than he thought he ever could.

Michelle was waiting for him in the back of the ambulance who shut the door as soon as TK entered, and the ambulance was driving away with sirens and lights blaring before TK had even sat down on the chair. “We’re alright,” she said, and her voice was surprisingly calm and even, but no less tight. “We’re good here. We’ve got it handled. He’s going to be OK.”

TK had no idea what she was talking about because from what he could see, it wasn’t going to be anywhere near OK. Carlos’s face was busted and bruised, with swelling from more places than TK could name, and slowly pouring blood coming from every single one of them. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his lip was twice it’s size. His shirt had been removed, and the damage was worse the further down he looked, but all of it was covered in a thin sheen of slowly drying blood. He was holding his wrist in a weird angle across his chest, and to TK’s dismay and relief, he was unconscious. All he wanted to do was glide his hands down his face, to run his fingers through his hair, to get a wet cloth and wipe away the worst of the blood, but he knew that he would be helping nobody but himself.

He looked up at Michelle, who was as professional as ever as she checked Carlos’s wounds and inserted an IV drip into the crook of his elbow but had an underlayer of fear that flicked in her eyes. “Why?” he asked her, and he hated how broken his voice sounded. “Why did you bring me with you?”

“The short answer?” She said, not looking up, and TK was silently glad she didn’t. “Because Carlos would never forgive me if he found out you were there and I didn’t let you sit by him.” She did look up, then, and TK could never have expected the vulnerable look in her eyes. “And because I really needed you here.”

TK didn’t know how to answer that, so he didn’t, and instead, he reached out and held Carlos’s hand in his, cradling it as carefully as he could, as he ran his thumb over the slick, motionless skin, trying his hardest to hold back tears. He was painfully aware of Michelle watching him even with his head down, and he prefered not having eyes on him when he finally, eventually gave in.

“Do you know what happened? Does anyone know how this happened?” TK asked, and he hadn’t expected to hear desperation, but it was definitely there.

“No, nothing yet,” Michelle said. “But they’re looking into it. They’ve told me that they’ve put their top investigators on this case. So we’ll find out soon unless he wakes up before then and tells us all about it.”

“So, you think he’ll be OK?”

“From what I can see?” Michelle said as she ran her hands tenderly over Carlos’s face. “He’ll be awake in a couple of days at most and will make a full recovery. He’ll feel like crap for a couple of weeks, maybe months, and will probably need to take a while off of work, but we’d all probably prefer that.” She fell silent for a moment as her hand moved to his hair. “He works too much,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” TK said because he physically couldn’t bring himself to say anything else. All he could do was sit there, helpless, staring into Carlos’s unnaturally sill face, unrecognizable under all the gore. 

“TK,” Michelle said and moved so she could meet his eye. “He’s going to be OK. We’ve got him now. He couldn’t be in safer hands. He’ll be fine. Up and running in no time.”

Nodding, TK gulped. “So, uh, are you going to tell me the longer version of why you wanted me to ride with you or is now not the right time?”

Something close to humour flickered over Michelle’s face. “We’ll save that story for a rainy day.”

The moment they had touched down in the parking bay of the hospital and rushed him through the sterile white walls, TK felt lost, like he had wandered somewhere new and couldn’t find his way back. He watched Michelle update the doctors dressed in different coloured scrubs as they wheeled Carlos away, and before he could act, another doctor pulled him away to a separate waiting room with blankets and pillows and walls decorated with painted murals and enamel stickers. TK looked for any kind of signs to tell him where he was, but there was none other than the arrows that pointed down the hallway and the names of different wards scrawled across the walls. He was alone in the waiting room, and he had never felt so small or alone.

After what felt like forever, Michelle was escorted through the double doors that slammed shut behind her, two nurses standing on either side of her and pulling the gurney between them, Carlos laying on it, motionless and too-still, but looking much better now that he was covered in crisp white bandages and gauze than blood and bruises

“Hey, TK,” Michelle greeted him, and she seemed much calmer than she did in the ambulance. The nurses wheeled Carlos into a room and pulled the curtain shut, and TK watched them with an eagle eye, and when they walked away, TK couldn’t pull his eyes away from where Carlos had disappeared. Michelle followed his line of sight and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You should go and sit with him. They said that he’s going to wake up soon, and you should be there when it happens. He’d like to see you.”

“What about you?” TK asked. He sounded weak and flat.

“I’ve already seen him,” Michelle said. “He’s doing much better, now that they’ve patched him up. They’ve given him a line of morphine, but there’s not much else they could do other than apply some bandages on the worst of it. You should know that he was stabbed,” TK spun to look at her sharply. “I knew about it in the ambulance, and I tried to patch it up as well as I could, but I didn’t point it out to you, because I thought that would make the situation worse. It was only a flesh wound, though, and missed anything vital. A couple of bruised ribs. Broken wrist, two fractures fingers. Those are the worst of it.”

“Do they…” TK gulped. “Do they know who did it?”

“Not yet, but they will,” Michelle assured, and somehow, TK found himself believing her. She put a hand on his lower back and shoved him towards the room. “Go, sit with him. When he wakes up, you’re who he’s gonna want to see.”

TK didn’t need to be told twice, and he disappeared behind the curtain without a second thought. There was a chair beside the bed, crammed into the tiny corner between the wall and a small table that held a corded phone, a lamp, and a selection of books and magazines before he even so much as looked at Carlos.

His eyes were closed, and TK ran his fingers through his hair. It was caked in dried blood, and TK tried to brush it out as well as he could without a wet cloth. His face was dotted with mottled bruises, and now that the swelling had gone down, it really didn’t look as bad as TK thought it did under the light of the ambulance. His wrist was bound in a brace, the hard plastic unyielding around his hand, his two broken fingers secured in splints. He had been changed out of his bloody and ripped clothes and now wore a bland hospital gown. TK lifted the edge a little bit to see the stab wound Michelle had mentioned, hidden behind tightly packed layers of bandages, before he lowered it back down. 

He ran his hand down Carlos’s face, smoothed his thumb over his jaw. TK wasn’t the most patient person in the world, but for Carlos, he could wait. 

A couple of hours later, TK was flicking idly through one of the magazines but not really reading it, when he heard a faint groan from below him and the sound of shifting. He dropped the magazine to the ground with little regard for the hospital’s property and leant over the groggy Carlos, who was slowly blinking open his eyes. “Hey there, handsome,” TK tried for a joke as he carded his fingers through Carlos’s hair.

“Hey,” Carlos replied, his voice thick and weak. “Fancy seeing you here. Come here often?”

“More often than I would like,” TK laughed. He had to blink away the tears that stung his eyes and threatened to spill onto his cheeks before he could continue. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible. As bad as I look, I’m guessing,” Carlos looked down at himself and fell back on the pillow with a pained groan. “I’m in an assless dress, which means it’s worse than I thought. But hey, at least I’m not dead, huh?”

If they were in any other situation, TK would have rolled his eyes and whacked him, but now all TK could do was laugh. “Don’t even joke about that,” he said, still laughing, and it was worth it for the faint smile that pulled at Carlos’s lips. Abruptly, he stopped laughing. This no longer felt like a laughing matter. “It was looking really bad there, Carlos. I was so worried…”

He trailed off, and Carlos moved his good hand and rested it over TK’s. “Hey,” Carlos said gently. “Don’t worry. I’m fine, right? We’ve both been through worse. You were shot.”

“You were stabbed.”

“Oh,” Carlos blinked. “Well, maybe it’s a good thing we found each other. We both somehow manage to get hurt in the most severe ways. Nobody else would be able to deal with so many trips to the hospital. But I’m alright. A little banged up, and I’ll probably be sore for a while, but I’m alright. I’m not dead. I’m fine.” He paused. “You’re still dressed in your uniform.”

TK hadn’t noticed. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t have a chance to go back to the station. The guys will probably bring me a change of clothes when they come by. Michelle let me ride in the ambulance, which was nice of her.”

“Oh god,” Carlos said, and he suddenly looked pale. “You didn’t respond to the _call_ , did you? You _did_ , didn’t you? Oh my-”

“It’s fine,” TK interrupted, but Carlos looked doubtful. “I didn’t see anything. They wouldn’t even let me inside, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“They?”

“The 126,” TK explained. “I guess they think I’m ‘too emotional’ or something. I was ordered to stay outside. It really sucked.”

Something humorous passed over Carlos’s face. “I mean, they’re not too far off. You do tend to freak out a little bit sometimes. It was probably a good thing that you stayed outside. I mean, it’s one of the things I love about you, you’re sensitive. Sometimes it doesn’t fall in your favour, though.”

TK made a face. “Hey, just because I was standing outside doesn’t mean I was freaking out like crazy. They wouldn’t tell me anything! I had expected them to contact me over the radio, but nothing. I don’t think it looked good though. They looked… troubled. Like they didn’t want to tell me. It must have been really bad for Judd to look like he had seen a ghost.”

“Well, if it looked at bad as I feel,” Carlos joked. “It must have been a disaster.”

There was a commotion outside and a soft knock on the door and TK glanced up to see two detectives in uniforms standing at the doorway, holding clipboards and looking stern yet sympathetic. “Mr Strand, would you mind leaving the room for a moment so we could have a talk with Officer Reyes?”

“Uh,” TK said intelligently. The emotional part of him wanted to say ‘no damn way’, but the logical part of him knew that wasn’t the best thing to do. “Yeah. Uh, give me a second.” He said, and after nodding, the officers left the room and stood just on the outside of the curtain. Sighing, TK ran his palms down his pants and stood up, bracing his hands on either side of the bed so he could lean over Carlos and place a delicate kiss to his forehead. “Hey, uh, I’ve got to go outside for a little bit, OK? But I’m going to be right outside, in the waiting room, so I won’t be too far. Just shout in you need me. Alright?”

“You won’t go?” Carlos asked, and TK was surprised by how vulnerable Carlos looked, like he was on the edge of his last tether, a dam on the verge of breaking. “You’ll stay with me?”

"Yeah, of course,” TK said, and he couldn’t help but laugh at how absurd this whole situation was. “I’m not going to leave my boyfriend alone in the hospital feeling like shit. I know how terrible these places can be. I’m not going anywhere.”

A twinkle returned to Carlos’s eye, and yes, this was the man that TK knew and loved. “Boyfriend now? Never heard that before.”

“Shut up,” TK replied as he felt warmth rush to his cheeks and a blush spread across his face. Carlos laughed as he reached up and ran the back of his good hand across his face. He turned his face to kiss his hand and Carlos smiled at the small action. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

TK backed away from the bed at the same time the detectives entered the room, and Carlos watched his back until he was out of sight and closing the curtain behind him.

When he turned around, he somehow wasn’t expecting to be met with the 126 taking up the whole waiting room, watching him expectantly. Judd was standing with Grace, leaning against the wall with his arm around her shoulders and her pressed up against his side. Paul was pacing back and forth across the waiting room. Marjan was sitting, curled up in one of the chairs, staring into the distance. Mateo sat on the floor in the corner, looking up at the spinning ceiling fan with his head resting against the wall and his hands in his lap. His dad was anxiously waiting for him to emerge, and was the first to notice him come out, and rushed to him with evident relief on his face. “Oh,” TK blinked, not expecting the company. “You guys came.”

“Of course, we came,” Judd scoffed as everyone moved from where they were sitting and practically ran towards him. Judd pulled him into a one-armed hug and kissed him on the top of the head, while the others hugged him around the middle and patted him on the back and rubbed his shoulders. His dad held him for a moment but didn’t pull fully away.

“How’s he doing?” Marjan asked, worry making her voice shake

Shrugging, TK avoided their concerned gaze by focusing on his shifting feet against the cool tile. “Apparently, not as bad as it looked. Bruised ribs, broken hand, stab wound. Plus the beating. But I’ve been told that he’s set to make a full recovery, which I honestly wasn’t expecting.”

“That’s great!” Paul said, and TK visibly watched everyone’s shoulders sag in relief. “I’m going to be honest with you, man, when we found him…”

He trailed off, and Mateo finished for him. “It was bad. Like, really, really bad. We didn’t think he was going to make it to the _hospital_ much less make a full recovery. But he’s alright!”

TK frowned. “Well, don’t tell me _that_.” Mateo winced, and Judd whacked him lightly on the back of the head, but it was all in good fun.

Owen got TK’s attention by squeezing his shoulder and handing him the clothes that he had been carrying under his arm. “I brought you a change of clothes from the station,” he said, and TK suddenly became aware of how everyone else had gone back to the firehouse to change into regular, casual clothes and TK was still standing there in his heavy boots and jacket and gloves. Even his helmet was lying on the floor in Carlos’s room. “Thought you might want to change.”

“Yeah, thanks,” TK said gratefully as he took the neatly folded clothes from his father’s arms. “The uniform isn’t exactly the most comfortable after sitting in a hospital chair for the last five hours.”

“Believe me, I know,” Owen said. “Although, to be fair, I wasn’t wearing the full gear while you were in here.”

“Do they know what happened?” Grace asked. “I got the call from a neighbour, saying that there was a break-in. I didn’t get anything about an attack or that it was... Carlos.”

Judd reached out and whacked TK in the chest, and though it was only lightly, TK was so tired that he felt like it could have knocked him over if his dad wasn’t holding onto him. “You knew who it was straight away. I thought you were just being weird because your foot was jumping on the truck and you were picking at your fingers. Didn’t think that it could be anything like this, though.”

There was muffled conversation through the curtain, and they all fell silent to try to catch any words that made it through, but there was nothing distinct. “I don’t know what happened,” TK said in answer to Grace’s question. “I think that’s what they’re in there trying to figure out, though. I should have asked you to grab Carlos a change of clothes when you went into his place. I knew they were going to change him into one of those gowns as soon as they got the chance. He hates those things.”

“Those damn hospital gowns,” Judd laughed, and Owen, Paul and Grace laughed with him, almost as if they all knew what he was talking about. TK would have joined in, but he was too tired to do much else than stand there. “I swore I would never wear another one of those and I stand by that to this day.”

“Yeah, well,” TK yawned as he ran a heavy hand down his face. “Not all of us can be so lucky.”

Paul reached out and placed a hand on TK’s wrist to pull it away from his face. “Hey, dude, he’s going to be fine. You know that, right?”

“I know,” TK said. “It’s just a lot harder when you’re on the other end of it.”

“He’ll be alright,” Owen assured and pulled him to his chest. TK just stayed there, resting his whole weight on his father’s chest, and though Owen was weaker now than ever before due to his cancer and the chemo, he was still able to carry TK’s weight easily. TK just stood there, letting himself be held as his dad held the back of his neck. “This is the best place for him. You know that he’ll be fine and that he’ll come out of this OK and in one piece, and we’re gonna be here right beside you, every step of the way.”

“Yeah,” TK mumbled. “I know. I just… I worry. Sometimes too much. But you know. It’ll all work out OK in the end.”

There was the jangling of metal on metal and TK pulled away from his dad's embrace just in time for the detectives to exit the room, looking troubled yet determined. TK waited. “Um?” he said after a moment of no response. “Well?”

The woman glanced at her clipboard before she looked back up at TK. "There's not much I can say because the case is still ongoing, but the suspect is already known to the APD and we're taking steps to rectify this situation."

TK raised an eyebrow. "You do know that Carlos is going to tell me the moment I ask him, right?"

There was a pause as everyone looked at TK. Both detectives exchanged a glance before they sighed and the man said, "Look, you didn't hear this from us, but the suspect was someone Reyes had already arrested previously for an unrelated crime. He was recently released and went after Officer Reyes in retaliation for putting him away. But that’s all we can tell you.”

“How did he know where Carlos lived?” TK frowned. 

“We’re still putting the pieces together, but you’ll be informed if we discover any new information,” she said before she paused. “You should go and see him. He’s asking for you.”

“Thank you,” TK said, and after giving him a nod, the detectives turned on their heel and left. Sighing, TK held onto one end of the curtain before looking back at the 126, all huddled together behind him, watching him with careful eyes. “You guys don’t have to stay here. I’ll probably be with Carlos most of the time anyway, so don’t feel obligated to wait up.”

“We never stop being the 126 even if we’re off duty,” Owen said. “We won’t stay here all night, because some of us have work in the morning, but we’ll stay here as long as we can.”

Judd put a heavy hand on his shoulder and shoved him towards the door, and TK nearly fell under the force of it. “Go. We’ll be here. You go be with your boy.”

TK didn’t need to be told twice, but before he could even react, a stressed voice from behind the curtain called, “TK?” and he was moving before he knew it. He hadn’t expected to be greeted by Carlos, having pulled his IV pole to the other side of the bed and lowered the bars that kept him from rolling out in his sleep, standing up on shaky legs and looking pale as he gripped the pole with his good hand for dear life.

“Carlos, what are you _doing_?” TK demanded, exasperated, as he charged into the room and grabbed hold of Carlos and helped lower him to the bed. And not a moment too soon, as Carlos practically collapsed in his arms. “You know you can’t go anywhere! What are you doing, standing up? You know better than that.”

“I wanted to say hello to the 126,” Carlos grumbled as TK helped get him settled on the bed.

“They could come _in here_ for that, there’s literally no reason for you to go out to them,” TK sighed.

“What if I wanted to give you a hug?”

“I could come to you! I can bend, you can’t stand!”

“What’s going on here?” Came a voice from the door, and TK turned to see Michelle standing there with her arms crossed, looking unimpressed, but smiling. “I can’t leave you two alone for a minute without something interesting and dangerous going on.”

TK snorted. “He thinks that recovering in the hospital is the best time to take a walk around the building.”

“And you’re encouraging it?”

“I am not-” TK objected, but paused at the look on her face. “Ha-ha, very funny. Maybe you can talk some sense into him because I’m not getting anywhere. He uses those big, sad puppy-dog eyes on me and he knows I can’t resist.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Michelle laughed as she entered further into the room. “Breaks your little heart in two, doesn’t it?”

Carlos made a disgruntled sound from the bed. “I’m still here. I'm recovering from broken bones, not sudden deafness. I can hear you.”

Michelle laughed. “I know. You’re a stubborn man, Carlos Reyes, even knocked up like this. But a couple of weeks of bad hospital food and shitty TV will change that,” she rested a hand on TK’s shoulder. “I’ll watch him for a little while. Have a shower, go get changed. He’ll be here when you come back, and so will the 126.”

“Yeah,” TK said as he picked his clothes off of the chair for Michelle to sit. “Alright. Thanks.” It took him a little while longer than TK had expected to turn away, and even when he managed to stumble to the edge of the bed, he still paused to rest a reassuring hand on Carlos’s knee. “You’re alright, yeah? Call if you need anything. I’ll be… I’m just in here.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Carlos managed a smile, and TK made to walk away, but Carlos made a half-aborted sound, and TK stopped dead in his tracks. “Uh, TK?” He called tentatively, and TK hummed in acknowledgment. “Thanks. For… for coming to get me. And taking care of me. It… it really means more than you know.”

“Hey,” TK tried for a laugh as he rubbed Carlos’s leg back and forth, and the look on Carlos’s face made a tiny yet suffocating weight lift from his chest. “I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Besides, what else are boyfriends for if not to take care of you when you’re sick? I’m happy to be here, and you know that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. You don’t have to thank me for anything. You’d do the same for me.”

Carlos didn’t say anything, but the smile that lit up his bruised face made TK’s heart swell three sizes and the weight he felt got a little bit lighter. He retreated to the relative safety of the cramped hospital bathroom, closing the door on the soft conversation of Michelle and his boyfriend, and leant his back against the door and slid down it to the cool tiled ground and _broke_. He clamped a hand to muffle any sounds, but he wasn’t sobbing or bawling his eyes like he had expected to. No, this was just the tears of an exhausted man who had been worried about the one he loved for hours finally getting the relief he needed. And yeah, it had been a terrible day, but Carlos was fine, and TK would take care of him, and they would both be OK.

On the worst day of TK’s new life in Austin, Texas, he took a deep breath, and he got ready for the long road of recovery ahead of them. But, somehow, he couldn’t find anything wrong with that. He would take any excuse he could to spend more time with Carlos without either of them feeling guilty about it, and maybe this was just what they were waiting for. And TK didn’t mind taking on the extra load of caring for a second person. Somehow, he found that he couldn’t wait.

They were going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost accidentally posted this WAY before it was done but was SAVED by forgetting to add the LANGUAGE SECTION so thank god for that.
> 
> I also had trouble trying to figure out where Carlos lived. Like, it was originally written in a house, but how often are houses in Texas these days, and does Texas even have apartment buildings?? I have no idea. But I saw a gifset on Tumblr of them making out at Carlos door and you could see a garden at floor level so HOUSE IT IS.
> 
> Anyway, I have... so many thoughts on why I wrote this fic?? But I'm pretty desperate to post it considering I've pretty much been working on it for two days, so if anyone wants to hear them, let me know. I have so much to do and instead, I'm writing 911 fics. Anyway, thanks for reading x


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